


Burning

by pushupindrag



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Communication, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Self-Harm, hinted happy ending, minor relationship - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-18 20:46:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9402272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pushupindrag/pseuds/pushupindrag
Summary: Nursey walks in on Dex self harming, and offers support.Everyone else had left, shouting and traipsing back to the Haus, high from a good practise.“Dex?” Dex jumps, yanking his arm back from the water, staring wide eyed at Nursey, fear filled and shaking.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Wow okay this is angsty as fuck sorry. Talking of self harm throughout (more description of in the end notes) so if that's something that affects you then please don't read.
> 
> When I feel sad I write angst, and I project on Dex so have some projective angst!
> 
> Come chat with me about Check Please! On my tumblr [here!](http://postpvnk.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Un'beted so if you find any mistakes please let me know :)

Nursey catches him doing it. Pouring boiling hot water all over the back of his wrist from the tap, wincing a little in the offset locker room bathroom.

Everyone else had left, shouting and traipsing back to the Haus, high from a good practise.

“Dex?” Dex jumps, yanking his arm back from the water, staring wide eyed at Nursey, fear filled and shaking.

“What?” His face changes, hardens to defends himself as he turns away. Paper towels coming to cover the burn.

“Come here.” Nursey sets forward, slowly and cautiously as Dex tenses, shoulders up around his ears. “You’ve got to run that under cold water otherwise you’ll get blisters.”

“I know that.” Dex still sounds defensive, voice clipped. But he turns a little to the sink, turning the cold water tap on before shoving his hand under the stream again, jumping a little as it hits his skin.

All Nursey can see is the red of Dex’s skin but he doesn’t dare step forward from the doorway.

He waits until Dex has finished holding his hand under the tap before drying it. And he steps back into the locker room, letting Dex finish up in there before Dex follows him quietly into the locker room.

Silently, Nursey rummages in his bag to find the cream he knows is in there. He carries around a small emergency kit because he’s so clumsy, and who would have ever thought Dex would be the one using it.

He holds the cream out to Dex who ignores him for a minute.

“It’ll help, come on.”

Dex just takes it, finishing putting his t-shirt on before he liberally applies the cream.

He goes back back to his own space, pulling his shoes on as he shoulders his bag.

“Meet me for lunch? I’ll treat you to one of those toasties you like at Annies.”

Dex just nods, stiff with his body radiating hostility so Nursey leaves to his first class, not wanting to stare at the defensive way Dex is holding himself any more.

He’s at Annies at 12 on the dot, having left class as early as he could to get there. He doesn’t expect Dex to meet him, even though he said he had.

They were friends now, but Nursey wasn’t sure how Dex would want to share with him.

To his surprise, Dex is already sitting at a table in the corner, laptop out and headphones in. Nursey can see the bandage on his wrist from the doorway, but he also spots the two full cups of coffee so he goes over.

“Hey.” He sits with a screech of his chair legs and Dex looks up. He nods once, holding up a hand which meant ‘five minutes’ in Dex language.

Nursey remembered when he would of gotten offended by the gesture, too caught up i how dismissive he thought Dex was being. Now he see’s it for the silent communication it is.

He grabs his mug in one hand, taking an absent sip as he opens his bag with the other, rummaging around until he finds his book and a pencil.

Sticking the pencil behind his ear, he cracks the book open, not putting his headphones in as he was reading to fill the time until Dex had finished.

The pencil is for annotation he makes, all commentary in the margins, unrequired from any course and done by his own will. He focuses on the task at hand, his thoughts on the book and how the coffee tastes in his mouth whenever he takes a drink, instead of the looming conversation he know’s that they’re going to have.

It’s seven minutes when Dex pulls his headphones off, closing down his laptop and putting in it bag. He looks expectantly at Nursey as Nursey dog eras the page he’s on.

“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. I’m not here to lecture.”

Dex shifts in his seat at that, but he looks marginally more comfortable than he had before Nursey had said anything.

“I’m not gonna tell to you stop, i’m not gonna guilt you into anything. I’m just here to tell you that you’re not the only one. Tell me if i’m out of line, but it helped me knowing I wasn’t on my own.” He shoves his jacket off, pulling his t-shirt sleeve up to his tattoo, stretching the skin a little and leaning forward.

Underneath the ink lies the scars he knows are there, and runs his fingers gently over the raised flesh.

There’s a twitch from Dex, of fingers that go to reach out. “You can if you want.”  
There are too many lines to count, uniform and steady. They had been deep, and they matched the ones on his thighs and by his ribs.

Dex reaches out and his fingers are gentle, careful. He touches the scars with such care that Nursey wants to yank his arm away. Not used to it. He doesn’t though, he waits until Dex is finished, only pulling his t-shirt sleeve back down when Dex moves his hand back.

“It’s hard to stop I know. Fuck, I only stopped because my mom made me promise.” He winces at the memory, of how his mom had cried, blaming herself.

“It’s hard as fuck and i’ve relapsed so many times. But i’m here for you, if you ever need to talk. If you want to stop, if you ever just want somebody to commiserate with.”

There’s a pause, and then Dex unwraps the bandage on his wrist, showing the burns that he had seemed to make worse in the time it had taken for him to meet up with Nursey.

“I put the cream on it again, like you said. And it hurts like a bitch.”

He fills the second pause with a self decreptive chuckle, and Nursey smiles sadly too.

“Anything I need to know?”

“Keep lighters away from me.”

Nursey just nods.

“Good to know. Don’t let me near calligraphy pens.”

“Alright.” Nursey holds his hand out as Dex is re-wrapping his wrist. Dex takes it and they shake, hands both warm and solid.

-

6 months later Dex is kissing his scars, tracing his fingers over the lines, and hasn’t done anything in that way in two weeks. And Nursey is so so proud of him. But Nursey knows that that doesn’t matter, it’s how Dex carries himself with his own pride that makes it all worth it.

It makes the countless journals littering his room, filled with angry scribbles and paragraphs and paragraphs of self hatred worth it. It makes accidentally catching a glimpse of this, and promptly throwing up worth it. It makes the few times that Dex had punched the walls out of frustration worth it.

The tears and the the late night conversations full of memories that brought bile to the back of both of their throats worth it. It’s shared stories, relapses and justified anger.

It’s the arguments that had sprung from Nursey overstepping, from Dex getting defensive and the furious kisses shared that eventually bloom into something more.

Everything is worth it for the pride on Dex’s face.

**Author's Note:**

> Dex uses boiling water to burn himself and there is brief mention of using lighters and calligraphy pens.


End file.
